The Committee against Torture has recently expressed outrage over Chechen leader Ramzan Kadyrov’s threats (unfortunately implemented) to banish the relatives of alleged militants and destroy their homes. This is not the first clear link with a similar move made against an NGO reporting on Russian soldiers fighting and dying in Ukraine.

On Saturday one Kremlin-loyal TV channel reported that “Pilot Savchenko” had been moved to another prison for 24-hour medical care, after which several equally loyal media published a prison service denial. All media were silent, among other things, about mounting calls for Nadiya Savchenko’s immediate release.

Public concern over Russia’s imprisonment of former military pilot and Ukrainian MP, Nadiya Savchenko has had impact. Every one of us can help ensure that this case, and that of Oleg Sentsov, Oleksandr Kolchenko and Yury Yatsenko are kept in the public eye until they are all released. Please share, tweet (#FreeSavchenko) and force Russia to comply with the Minsk Protocol and international law

Russian attempts to muffle information about Nadiya Savchenko’s capture by Kremlin-backed militants in Ukraine have not convinced MEPs who voted on Thursday to call for “an exchange of all prisoners, including Nadiya Savchenko”. A similar public call is eagerly awaited from the Parliamentary Assembly of the Council of Europe. Please help ensure that the call is heeded!

On the 33nd day of Nadiya Savchenko’s hunger strike, four people only planning a protest outside the remand prison [SIZO] in Moscow were detained on Wednesday morning. The Russian authorities are trying to muffle protest and information about Nadiya Savchenko’s case. Please help ensure that they fail!

Veteran human rights activist Svetlana Gannushkina condemns the move saying that even during the Soviet era under the dictatorship of Josef Stalin, “a son did not answer for his father and vice versa.” She calls the bill an “absurd” return to “collective responsibility, collective guilty, and collective punishment.”

Please sign and circulate this appeal to the President of the Parliamentary Assembly of the Council of Europe asking that they demand the release of MP and PACE Delegate Nadiya Savchenkowho who has been on hunger strike in a Russian prison for over a month

Nadiya Savchenko has passed a letter via her lawyers to all those concerned for her fate in which she thanks everybody but rejects pleas for her to end her hunger strike. It is the only way she has to seek justice and she is adamant that she will not eat until the day of her return to Ukraine – or the last day of her life in Russian prison

From torturing puppies and calling on fellow neo-Nazis to kill down-and-outs and animals in St. Petersburg, Alexei Milchakov turned to killing Ukrainians in Donbas. Graphic pictures of his time fighting together with Kremlin-backed militants can be found on his VKontakte page – “Alexei Milchakov - Russia’s Pride and Glory”

It is excellent that the US State Department has called for Nadiya Savchenko’s release but it is clearly not enough. Please send the enclosed letter (or your own) stressing the need for their public response now to Parliamentary Assembly of the Council of Europe President Anne Brasseur and PACE members (emails given!)

"Ukrainian soldiers and Ukrainian civilians are not fighting on Russian territory; Ukraine is not supplying Russian separatists with arms and is not calling the Russian government ‘fascists’ and ‘a junta’. Yet Kuban students (and probably not they alone) are taught that Ukraine presents a threat to Russia’s national security, and not vice versa

Reaction was immediate over Russian attempts to restrict a British film director’s mention of Sergei Eisenstein’s homosexuality. Western media seem unaware or worryingly unperturbed that the same Peter Greenaway has been trumpeted by the Russian media as planning to visit Russian-annexed Crimea, thus ignoring sanctions & serious rights issues, including with respect to Ukrainian film director Oleg Sentsov  

PLEASE TWEET / HELP CIRCULATE! Nadiya Savchenko, Ukrainian MP and PACE delegate has been on hunger strike in a Moscow prison since Dec 13. It is now 24 days since she took food, yet her lawyers have been refused access and the prison is not passing on letters

Nadiya Savchenko, Ukrainian MP and prisoner of Russia’s undeclared war against Ukraine, has been on hunger strike in a Moscow prison for 19 days and has said she will not end it until released. Her lawyers report that they will not be allowed to see her until Jan 12, heightening mounting concern for her health

Two peaceful protesters who came out on Manezh Square on Dec 30 to protest against the ‘hostage-taking’ real 3-year jail sentence passed on the brother of leading opposition politician Alexei Navalny, have been jailed for 15 days

As well as hundreds of peaceful protesters outraged by the conviction of Alexei and Oleg Navalny, Russian police have also detained three artists attending the showing of “Stronger than Weapons”, a new film about EuroMaidan. The event was in solidarity with Ukrainian film director and Russian political prisoner Oleg Sentsov

It is normally terrorists and criminals who take family members hostage, not puppet courts in trials of the Kremlin’s political opponents. Few see the real prison term imposed on Alexei Navalny’s brother Oleg in any other light, and there have been calls to boycott Yves Rocher for its cooperation with the Russian authorities

Almost exactly 25 years after the death of Andrei Sakharov, the Sakharov Centre, together with NGOs from Kaliningrad and Krasnodar, have been forcibly added to Russia’s notorious register of ‘foreign agents’,

The verdict on opposition politician and anti-corruption campaigner Alexei Navalny and his brother has been put forward to Tuesday, Dec 30 in a move very obviously aimed at trying to forestall the planned public rally in support of the Navalnys on Jan 15.

More details have emerged of the secrecy behind the closed trial of Gennady Afanasyev whose testimony is the only ‘evidence’ in the ‘Crimean terrorist plot’ case and may be used to get renowned Ukrainian film director Oleg Sentsov and left-wing activist Oleksandr Kolchenko 20 year sentences